"I can’t tell you that gold is a bad investment. Even after the recent plunge, if you had bought gold in 2004, your investment would have earned you an annualized rate of about 10.4 percent, after accounting for inflation. That is darned impressive.""If you bought in 1994, it would have earned about 3.9 percent per year — not too shabby. Even if you bought all the way back in 1984, you would have earned 1.8 percent in real terms." http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/07/17/gold-dreamers-face-reality/wUfjnyMN9Eh6N0bUZRHiSI/story.html